Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Slowly but surely, the demolition of the old Yankee Stadium is picking up steam. As you can see from the picture above, most of the upper levels have been gutted and what was once the field is now dirt and massive piles of rubble. I took these photos yesterday from the 4 train platform at the 161st Street stop, which as this New Yorker piece points out, is the best place to view the stadium’s destruction.

There wasn’t any activity happening yesterday, a dreary, rainy Tuesday. And while the weather might have kept the construction crews at bay, it didn’t stop diehard Yankees fans like Glenn Laste from coming by to catch a glimpse of the old stadium before it’s gone for good.

“It’s so sad, it’s just so sad,” said Laste, of Brooklyn.
He’d brought three friends who were visiting from out of town—former New Yorkers who now live in Florida, all decked out in Yankees gear—to have their picture taken in front of the old stadium.

Nearly two years later, deconstruction is still not finished, a fact that’s drawn criticism from some neighborhood advocates who say it’s taking too long. The Yankees promised to build ball parks in the old stadium’s footprint to compensate for parkland and trees that were built over and cut down in the construction of the new one.

According to the Daily News, the process is going slowly due to the stadium’s close proximity to an elevated subway line and residential shopping areas--meaning the crews can't use quick blasting explosives like they did at Shea Stadium, which took just eight months to come down.

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